Imagining Possibilities

John, Part IV

2009-12-08T20:13:00.003-05:00

I was starting to think that I wouldn't be hearing from John for a long time, but then he called me tonight. He said he had just put minutes on his phone. I asked him how he was doing, and he said alright. He said that he missed a few--well, all--of last week because he was with social services. He said that he has to do 12 days there because of his arrest.

I said I was surprised that they would have him use all of this time to miss school to do this.

He said it was because the charges were serious.

What were they?

He said something about gang assault.

Oh, you didn't tell me that.

You never asked.

That's right. He said he's going to go to school this whole week. He told me that he brought a note to school today to explain his absence. School was good because the teachers didn't ask too many questions.

Better than social services?

Way better.

What about homework?

He hasn't figured out if he has homework assignments yet. He said that the school is very independent, so he can't really figure out how students get their assignments. He said tomorrow he'll ask.

I said I'd ask Mr. M to help him with that.

He's coming over on Sunday. At least, that's the plan.

I'm feeling some hope again. I can hear in his voice that he wants to do well, and I know that he doesn't want to go to jail. I appreciate his loyalty. I can tell that he doesn't want to let me down.

John, Part III

2009-12-06T16:10:00.004-05:00

This is my third post about my former student, who I'm calling John. By chronicling my experience with him, I'm hoping to illuminate some of the obstacles to succeeding in school facing a young man in the South Bronx. I believe that the root of these obstacles--himself, the school system, society at large, etc.--are impossible to pinpoint. There is always another cause behind the cause. The obstacles are significant, however, because they seem to promulgate in communities like John's. That is a sign of a fundamentally unjust society, and I'm interested in figuring out systemic answers.

At the same time, I hope that there are some answers in my individual efforts with John. So far, though, I haven't found any. I'm not surprised, either, and I wouldn't do anything differently. Things may still get worse before they get better.

Oh, and I also write to vent. This is frustrating.

-----------------------------------------

Monday, November 23

John entered school last Thursday, and Mr. M said he'd be able to tell me by today what the school would do to ensure that John had the opportunity to earn credits this semester. I call Mr. M, John's guidance counselor.

Mr. M said that John attended school on Thursday but was out on Friday. He came back today. John claimed that he had an appointment with social services on Friday, and Mr. M told him to bring a note next time. He said the principal said that John would have to do his work and they'd evaluate the credits.

I said I'd like to come to school on Wednesday morning, the day before Thanksgiving, to meet with the principal and a few teachers to find out what John should be focusing on. After entering the semester two-thirds in, having been out of school for a year and half, and with low skills to start with, I just don't think he can tackle all of his classes at once. Mr. M says, This is not the type of school where you can make an appointment with the principal at any time, even for the same week. And this week is midterms so I know she won't meet with you.

I vent to a co-worker, and she suggests that I call the principal and then email her from my Department of Ed account. I do, and she calls back. I miss the call, but I'm able to call her shortly afterwards. She said that she's had to ask him to take his hat off, and that when she speaks to him he looks right through her like she's not even there. She says, and this is verbatim, I've never had a student like that.

I think, really? I've had plenty.

I asked her what she thought his goal should be right now, because passing all of his classes just didn't seem realistic. She said his goal should be to come to school every day and respond when adults speak to him.

When I ask her about credits, she says, I'm very clear that students have to do the work to earn credits. I say, well, if John gets 100s in all of his classes this quarter and 0s for the first two quarters, that's only 33 percent, and no credits. She says, I think the teachers will work with him, he can earn some credits.

Tuesday, November 24

I get John on the phone. I've left several messages and written him a couple of times on myspace as well, and he finally calls back. We talk for awhile, and I tell him what his principal said. He seems surprised. I also tell him I'm proud of him. I invite him over for dinner and homework for the next Tuesday. He accepts.

Tuesday, December 1

I've written John and called him to remind him about dinner. I call and leave another message, and he texts me at 4:05:

I cant make it i still have 2 more hour at this community service program. I cant talk on the phone neither

I text back:

Ok, can you call me tonight?

John:

My phone been actin up. sry i couldnt make it

Me:

Its ok, but id like to talk. If you cant talk tonight ill try calling mr m tomorrow to see if you can call together

John:

Ill call u

Wednesday, December 2

I received this email from Mr. M:

Dear Sam,

Just wanted to inform you that John has not been to school since our Thanksgiving break.

Warmly,
Mr. M

I wrote back that I'll do what I can. And I've been able to exchange some quick messages on myspace with John, but he says his phone is not working so he can't call. Of course, I told him that he needs to find a way to make a call, but it hasn't happened yet.

John, Part II

2009-11-19T23:17:00.002-05:00

I called John about 5pm today. He told me he went to school the whole day. I asked if he got there on time, and he said yes, about 8:20-something. I asked if Mr. M tied his tie or he got someone else to do it, and he said Mr. M tied it. I asked if he had any assignments, and he said, what do you mean, homework? I said yes. He said, no, they said that I’m too late in the semester to earn credit so I don’t need homework. (The semester ends at the end of January.) I said I was going to do something about that, that I wanted him to earn credits, even if only 1 or 2 for the semester. I said he needed to keep trying though. He said, I am.

I’m going to call Mr. M on Monday to find out about the credits and the homework, and I’ll be at the school on Wednesday morning.

John was going into his elevator, so he said he’d call back after 9:00 when his minutes are free. It’s a good thing that he has minutes at all right now. He said that his brother or his uncle gave him money for a prepaid phone. When he didn’t have a phone last year the only way I had of communicating with him was through myspace. We can get more done in a minute on the phone than in a week of myspace.

I didn’t hear from John, so I called at 9:30. His brother answered and said that John didn’t have his phone right now. I asked if John was nearby, and he said no, sir. I asked if he knew that John went to school this morning, that I was his teacher. He said yes, he saw him in his uniform. I told him that I had gone with John to get his uniform. I said I was really proud of John, and I hoped he was too and that he was encouraging him. He said, definitely, I’m glad to see he’s on the right track. I asked him to tell John that I called.

One thing I didn’t say about John was why he was motivated to get back in school. As we were walking to his apartment yesterday, he asked me if I remembered the father of one of his former classmates, my former student, who was a cop. I did. He told me that the father patrolled the neighborhood, and he said that he had arrested John not so long ago. I asked for what. He said it was for being out at night with friends who had weed. He said the father took John to the precinct but let him go. (I think he knew John, and that may have helped.) John then told me that he had been arrested a few times for being out with guys who were smoking weed.

A little later he said, I’m not gonna lie, I smoke too. I asked if he did any other drugs. John said, weed’s not a drug, it’s an herb. That led to a discussion about what constitutes a drug.

But John told me, as we waited for someone to let us into his apartment building—he and his mom had lost the key to the front door, and it’s expensive to replace—that he had been to court recently, and the judge had told him that if he messed up again he’d be locked up for 15 days. Up to this point he’s only spent up to a weekend in lock-up.

A little while later, while we were walking to his school, I pointed to the barbed wire surrounding a juvenile detention facility not far from his house. I asked if he knew what it was. He said, Horizon. I said yes. I’ve been there a few times, because one of the schools I work with is inside. I said, so that’s where you’ll go if you get locked up? He said, no, I’ll go to Rikers, I’m 16. I said, oh, that’s right.

Even though I spend time on Rikers, I always forget that in New York 16 year-olds are tried as adults.

John said, I’ll go crazy if I go to Rikers.

Why?

Dudes will try to challenge me and want to fight. That’s why I need to get back in school.

Frustrated and Angry

2009-11-18T22:34:00.002-05:00

I met “John” this morning at 8:30 at the McDonald’s at 149th and 3rd Ave. in the South Bronx. We caught up over orange juice, then headed over to “Cookies” to buy him some school clothes.

John was a student in my advisory two years ago. Last year, he was enrolled at Gompers High School, where his attendance rate was 35% first semester and 8% second semester. (One of the interesting things about working in a district office now is that I can look these things up.) I helped him apply to a new high school last winter because he was unhappy at Gompers. He has attended exactly one day at his new high school so far this year.

The day he went to school, the principal told him that he needed to wear a uniform—he says he didn’t know—and she put him in detention. When the fire drill went off, he left, and until today he had not been back.

John lives with his mother, who does not work. He is in contact with his father, but he does not work either.

Today, we spent $130 on three pairs of pants, three shirts, socks, and a tie. We spent $20 on school supplies and $15 on a backpack. We visited about seven stores before we found a $35 pair of black shoes that fit his size-12 feet AND that he could live with.

Last week, I spoke to John’s counselor, Mr. M. I told Mr. M that John would be coming with me to school in a week when I could take a morning off. Mr. M wanted to know why John hadn’t been in school. I didn’t know what to say. I know John says it’s because he didn’t have a uniform. I told him I didn’t see why it was relevant at this point, because he was coming back. I then said that it was pretty much the same story that any other 16 year-old in New York has for not being in school. I wanted to know how, going forward, they would support John, a student who has not been in school for a year and half and wasn’t a strong student when I had him. (I remember him saying that he had never read a book until he came to our school. He passed the eighth grade, but barely.) I don’t care if John only earns two credits this semester, because that will be two more than he has now. I just don’t want him to be told to take on a full schedule in a third of a semester and then get no credits when it’s over. I asked if his schedule could be adjusted to give him more time in particular classes. Mr. M said he’d have to check with the principal. A few hours later he called back and said John would have to keep his schedule as it is: two different English classes, two different history classes, two Science sections, Math, Gym, and Art.

In between shopping trips, John and I walked to his school building. Agent T greeted us with, “You’re a student at ________?” (His school shares the building with several other schools.) “You need a uniform.” I explained to her the situation and said he’d be back the next day in uniform. I would have the same conversation three more times when we arrived at the school. I told her that John was trying to get back on track and would she please look out for him.

The first person we met in the office was the attendance teacher, who told John that he had been to his house looking for him. He asked John where he had been, why he hadn’t been in school. He told him about the uniform. He warned him that if he wasn’t attending at the end of the school year he could be taken off the school’s register. And he told John that he knew his brother from Gompers and that was what happened to him.

The secretary told us John needed a uniform and thrust the uniform description at us.

We were able to meet Mr. M and John’s English teacher, but there had been two fights today so the principal was tied up in student mediations. I asked whether John could take home some reading with him. The English teacher said that it was an expensive textbook and that she’d have to check with the principal. Maybe if John were attending school. I said, well that’s a catch 22; he needs the book to work and he needs to work to get the book. I asked the English teacher what John would have to do to earn a credit this semester, given that he is entering two-thirds of the way through the year. She said that she would have to ask the principal. I asked Mr. M if we could meet some more of John’s counselors. He said that he wasn’t what the principal had in mind for new incoming students.

I felt like telling them that they were some stonewalling cowards standing in the way of a student from trying to do the right thing. I felt like telling the principal that while I had never met her, she didn’t know the first thing about leadership. I felt like telling John that this whole thing was fucked up and that these people did not trust him and he would have to work at earning their trust. Of the past three aspirations, only the third did I follow through on.

I also asked John why he thought I was spending the morning with him and my money on him. He said, because you think it’s the right thing to do. And because you care. I said that he was right, but there were two other reasons. I told him I believed in him, probably more than he believed in himself. And I told him that it was an investment. The first return on the investment would come tomorrow when I found out that he went to school on time, in uniform and stayed the whole day. He thanked me.

I made a plan with Mr. M to call him on Monday to find out what John would need to do to earn credits this semester. If he doesn’t tell me, I’ll be calling the District Family Advocate as well as his principal’s boss.

It strikes me that not only do John’s parents lack the money to get him off on the right foot, they lack the knowledge and sense of entitlement that is driving me to make sure he gets the support he deserves.

At about 1:30pm, shoes and school supplies in hand, I left John and flagged a livery cab to get back to work. He said he’d call me on his way home from school tomorrow.

Even as I write this, there are two other situations with students that are weighing heavily on me. A female student who I knew at my old school took a stray bullet to the head on Monday afternoon and is in a coma. I have spoken to several of her distraught friends in the past two days. Another former student just posted a clear cry for help on Facebook, one that I don’t care to describe here.

When I think about these stories in the light of education policy debates, I get frustrated. Schools matter. But the argument that great schools and a great education will lift these students out of poverty feels inhumane. What can we do about drugs, guns, and poverty NOW? We can’t wait for kids to get a good education. And even if we could wait, drugs, guns and poverty are getting in the way.

Kristof and the Parents

2009-10-18T11:01:00.002-04:00

The blog lives! This week Nicholas Kristof wrote a piece entitled "Democrats and Schools." I've read several critiques of the piece, but what I haven't seen anyone address is what Kristof says about parents. At different points in his column he refers to the parents of children in poorly performing schools as "uninterested" and "uncomplaining." Now, critics of the piece argue that Kristof is blaming teachers for the current state of education, and I think there's some validity to that point. But what really strikes me is the extent to which he is blaming parents.

Here's what we know about parenting and poverty: 1) Poverty causes stress; 2) Stressed out parents create dysfunctional home environments; and 3) Kids in dysfunctional home environments do poorly in school. (Of course, there are plenty of examples of parents who are able to deal with poverty effectively, but this is the overall trend.)

However, Kristof doesn't acknowledge any of this. Does Kristof really believe that families are poor because their parents just don't care about education? I'm not sure. There are folks out there who believe that, though, and that always causes me to ask, well how do you explain the disproportionate number of black families who are poor?

And for a far more insightful and nuanced critique of teachers' unions and all other players who have contributed to the current problem in New York City of a glut of subpar teachers who no one wants to hire, check out Ariel's blog. It's excellent.

Good Schools are Not Enough

2009-05-27T19:50:00.005-04:00

Tonight I spoke to one of my all-time favorite students. D was a sixth grader in my first advisory, when I started teaching middle school in 2005. (For those who don't know, advisory is a non-academic class designed primarily for middle schools. The idea is to create a small setting where every student can create a close relationship with peers and adults and discuss issues relevant to their lives.) D was tough, well-loved, and bright. Honest, too, for the most part, in that she would tell you what was on her mind to your face, or she would just be quiet. Mischievous. And angry.

In seventh grade she was in my advisory again, but she began missing school. The week before my wedding, in early October, my wife came to visit the class, but D was out. I remember being disappointed. Not long afterwards she came to school with a black eye. I can't remember the explanation. And a few days after that she came to school one day and refused to go home. She told her friends and then the principal that her mom was hitting her.

Ever since then she's been in foster care (except for part of a summer with her grandparents in a neighboring state). She ended up going to a different school that year, but I didn't lose touch with her. At least, not completely. Last year she ran away for three months. And in the past year she's bounced around a few times between homes, but because I work for the school district I'm able to see her phone number when it's updated in the system and call her up. I can also see her attendance; she's been in school 25 days so far this year.

I've only spoken to her twice this year. The first time, about 4 months ago, she was six months pregnant. The second time was tonight. Her baby is two weeks old, healthy. She says that she may be going back to live with her grandparents.

The stories of bouncing between foster care homes and teenage pregnancy are not uncommon, obviously. The causes of these life situations are, also obviously, difficult to pinpoint. But what I am fairly sure of is that D did not go into foster care because her school was poor. She also did not become pregnant because of her school. At least, her school is no more the cause of her pregnancy and absenteeism than any of a number of other social factors. Like her dad being locked up, for example, which could be blamed on his school experience, but could also be blamed on the fact that there are a shortage of jobs in the South Bronx--the neighborhood where D lives. Or a sense of hopelessness that comes from never leaving an economically depressed neighborhood, which could be blamed on housing policies, or transportation policies, or Robert Moses.

That's why I get mad about folks like Joel Klein, Al Sharpton, and Newt Gingrich pretending that good schools can be created independent of all other social factors and will solve the problem for kids like D. The type of reform that they are calling for asks very little of anyone in our society except the students, teachers, and administrators in the school building. And that's not going to amount to real change.

Better schools may have helped, and may continue to help, D. But they're not the whole answer.

BTW, I recognize that this post is long on problems and short on solutions. I hope, though, that it goes a little ways to illustrating why the solution to social inequality in our society must be BIG--bigger than what happens in the school building.

Not Going to Compromise

2009-05-19T20:30:00.002-04:00

I was inspired to write by a friend who wrote me the other day.

It started when I posted the comment below as my status update on Facebook with this link:

"What I'm screamin' about education. 2.5 minutes."

A friend of mine, we'll call her C, wrote this to me:

Dave Berliner has been singing this song since the 70s. There is a huge chorus out there that recognizes that we know how to tackle the complexities of the problem but, lack the will to do so. It would cost more than you can imagine, demand change in the ways in which we view ourselves and our neighbors, and require the type of coordination among resources, services, and aspects of our social fabric that is overwhelming. He was an important leader in education research when we were at the National Institute of Education in the 70s and 80s. The closest I know that we've come to approaching his ideas is the old Follow Through Program. Don't get me started.......

I wrote back the comment below:

Hi C! Great response. Here are my thoughts:

1) I'm glad you told me about Berliner. I had only heard of him once before, but I thought he seemed like someone who has been around awhile. He's definitely of the camp people like David Brooks call (ironically) "traditionalist."

2) I don't want to just scream about this. That's why I'm not in academia.

3) I don't see any other option other than this approach. I truly believe that folks who dismiss this are delusional, because it's the same folks who say Berliner is a traditionalist who believe that good teaching alone can close the achievement gap. Most of those folks have never been teachers, and if they were, their teaching careers lasted only long enough to give them street cred.

If the goal is to really ensure that poor black kids and middle class white kids leave high school with the same level of education, then trying to plug holes with good teachers and principals will never do the trick. And if we stick to that line of thinking then we're either lying to others or ourselves.

So maybe Berliner's vision is a pipe dream, but at least it's an honest dream. Costs more than I can imagine? So does the Iraq War. Demand change in the ways we view ourselves and our neighbors? So did ending Jim Crow (and the work isn't done, but there have been changes). Require coordination among the social fabric? That's doable.

I'm not an academic because folks like him have already laid out the vision for what needs to be done and why. But we need to figure out a new approach to getting there. I'm tired of the same old conversation, just like you.

When I started this blog, I really just wanted to tease out the point I'm making above. I've been feeling like I've said what I want to say, and since I'm not doing any original research, I've got no more to add on this topic. My thoughts above are as plain as can be. It helped that I was writing to a friend, so I didn't self-censor thinking about a more public audience.

Well, there are a few other things that I want to say. They're just too complicated for a brief blog entry. I'm still mulling over them, so the blog lives on.

Obama's Ed. Speech

2009-03-14T18:23:00.008-04:00

Last week President Obama gave a speech on education. Some really big dogs (David Brooks, Nik Kristof, Andrew Rotherham) really loved it. The most mainstream critic I saw was Diane Ravitch. Not surprisingly, the World Socialist Website didn't like it, either. I've got a few ideas about what I liked, didn't like, and would have liked to have seen.

Liked:

Obama is talking about education in a way that is more insightful and nuanced than any leader of the two major parties since I started following this stuff (in 2000). That's not high praise, though, but it's a start. He gets points for speaking directly to students, parents, and teachers in a way that resonates. I think a president should do that. He's devoting a lot of more federal money to education initiatives, though the dollars pale in comparison with other areas of the budget (see WAR). His focus on quality early childhood education is great.

Didn't Like:

The Data
Other bloggers have pointed out a number of places in which Obama's data was off or misleading. They're worth a look. But I thought the most significant errors were in what he had to say about college. I think his stats come from the same Bureau of Labor Statistics study I wrote about previously in a post about large numbers of jobs in our economy that do not require post-secondary training. What I'm responding to here are the following statements by Obama: "Of the 30 fastest growing occupations in America, half require a bachelor's degree or more," and, "By 2016, four out of every 10 new jobs will require at least some advanced education or training."

In contrast, the following sentences are quoted directly from the study Obama cites: "The 30 occupations with the largest job growth account for about half of all job openings due to growth: 8.1 million of the projected total 17.4 million openings. (See table 3.) These 8.1 million new jobs represent a much larger number of new jobs, compared with the top 30 fastest growing occupations, which account for a lesser 2.3 million jobs." So, the half of the 30 fastest growing occupations in America that will require a bachelor's degree account for less than 2.3 million (probably closer to 1 million) openings. There are projected to be about 17.4 million job openings in all in 2016. And, as I cited in my earlier post on the subject, the overall number of jobs that require a bachelor's degree or higher will increase from 20.6% of all jobs in 2006 to about 21.7% in 2016. That's not as significant as Obama made it sound.

Also, from looking at the tables in the report, I think his reference to "advanced education or training" includes on-the-job training. I could be wrong, but I'm just not 100% sure what the source is.

I wrote previously about how I did not think Arne Duncan was being straight about the need for our students to go to college, and I get the same feeling from Obama on this subject. I want him to do a better job of articulating why college is important in our economy--an economy in which most jobs do not require a college education.

The Initiatives
I think Obama got especially high marks for being a Democrat who departed from previous administrations and took on teachers' unions positions. The two most controversial stances he took were in favor of merit pay and lifting state caps on charter schools. I don't have a problem with either of those ideas, with this qualifier: I don't think they'll amount to big change.

Merit pay, in different forms, is actually already being used in a number of school districts. It is being studied. I've yet to see any public discussions about merit pay be informed by data, but apparently the data is out there or being collected. I'd like to know what the researchers have found out before supporting the initiative.

The President also said we need more data to find out what works in teaching. I've been writing about the topic of data and am skeptical of the President's assertion.

The data on the overall quality of charter schools does not show a big difference from public schools. It is certainly true that there are some innovative, highly successful charter schools out there. But overall, I don't see how more charter schools will solve the problem.

Would Like to See:

1) I want the President to explain in a way that reflects the reality of our economy why schooling matters. It's not that we need everyone to go to college. I like college. I wish everyone could go. But not everyone can. The fact is that we have a lot of retail and service jobs in this society that don't require any advanced training, but someone has to do them.

That said, school matters. I do believe that we will have a happier, more productive workforce if the quality of our education system improves. Furthermore, I dream of a society that educates in a way that goes beyond what standardized tests measure. That society just might be more united and compassionate. Less likely to hate, more likely to conserve. I'd love to see the President expand his vision of education beyond the economy, but right now its not in the mission.

2) I would love to see a speech on education one day in which the President brings together his Secretaries Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, and asks them to explain what they are doing that will help kids and families. At the federal level, the President has always exerted more power in those areas than he has in schools. After his various department heads explained themselves, the President or the Secretary of Education could explain how those initiatives would translate into better outcomes for kids.

Jean Anyon has written very convincingly on how we need to rethink what counts as education policy. I taught students in California whose disjointed paths to my classroom were influenced by immigration policies such as Proposition 187, which bars undocumented immigrants from receiving public benefits. I also taught students in the South Bronx, one of the most isolated areas of New York City. Their daily lives are a reflection of Anyon’s observation that housing and transportation policies that create high poverty neighborhoods also create high poverty schools—and the problems that come with them. A communicator like Obama is capable of making the logical case that we need to help students by fixing what's both inside and outside of our public schools. After all, he cited Lincoln, FDR and Kennedy as Presidents who took on and triumphed over multiple challenges at one time.

3) While I liked Obama's message that kids need to go to school on time and parents need to turn off the TV, there wasn't much meat there. Here's one of my favorite initiatives, one that I always wished I could implement at my schools as a teacher but never did: Turnoff Week. I had a friend who did this at her school in Long Beach back in 2000, and I never forgot her example. She was able to mobilize her entire school community around community events that week, while really educating parents about the pitfalls of television and the importance of reading.

And while he didn't say it in this speech, he has said that parents need to read to their children. He could encourage people to start community movements around this very notion, backed by umbrella organizations like the National Children's Reading Foundation (another one that I tried but never quite brought to fruition--maybe some day).

So, when the President--the former community organizer--tells kids and parents to get it together, he could give some weight to his comments by touting a structure within which to make these things happen. We can create the networks that make some of these big, dreamy ideas a reality--and a little more substance from Obama will go a long way towards making that happen.

Expedience vs. Accuracy

2009-03-12T20:35:00.006-04:00

I've been absent for awhile. I was doing so well at posting here! I hope to get back at it as regularly as I was before. I really enjoy getting my thoughts down here, though it is challenging to find the time. Just had a child in December, my first, and caring for him and taking care of my sleep took precedence over the past few weeks. I also just read two books that I've been thinking about and will provide some fodder for future posts.

So I read a paragraph the other day that I think really captured the terms of the debate over data, which I addressed in my last post. Charles Barone wrote a review of Tennessee's growth model for measuring student achievement over at the Education Sector. NCLB requires that schools compare cohorts of students (by race, language ability, special education status, etc.) from year to year. One problem with this is that a school may not have the same students from year to year. A growth model like Tennessee's allows a school to track individual students and be evaluated based on their progress. One of Barone's criticisms of the system is as follows:

"Because this model relies on multiple regression analysis, one must be a statistician to understand it. Although complexity may be a necessary trade-off for more accuracy, there is a loss of simplicity and transparency for parents and the general public." (emphasis added)

It struck me that Barone openly acknowledged that in some cases, accuracy may be less important than simplicity. And you know what? He's right.

The question of whether accuracy is always paramount is a legitimate point of contention. I interviewed for a position with the Education Trust back in 2002, and I remember discussing the problems with standardized testing with one of their senior analysts. His position was that we needed something, even if it were problematic, to measure what was happening in schools. Accuracy was not paramount for him.

And there are some cases in which I agree that we can rush a simple measure and it is just as useful as an exact measure. For instance, we don't need to know the exact number of miles that equal the circumference of the Earth and the distance to the moon, because astronomers can do all kinds of things with a sound estimate. And we don't need to know the exact number of people out of work to judge the economy. And if my boss asks me how many students enter and leave a particular alternative school compared with another within a month, she may not really want to wait if it takes me too long to get an exact number. An estimate does just fine.

In education, however, everyone knows that a single test cannot measure the overall quality of a child's education. It does not capture how well the child learned overall, and it does not tell us how well he/she will learn in the future. Yet Barone appears willing to concede the accuracy of a measure whose utility is limited to begin with.

Barone's point that regression analysis makes the results less transparent is misguided as well. The general public does not understand how Adequate Yearly Progress (the measure, set at the state level, by which schools are judged under NCLB) is determined as it is, but people will still pay attention to which schools are "failing." The final grade is simple, but the fact that it is simple does not make it transparent--whether it was determined with regression analysis or not.

I like Diane Ravitch's recent words about data:

"Data are in the saddle now, to the detriment of kids and their education. Data are being treated as objective facts, when they really are the numbers produced based on assumptions. If the assumptions are wrong, the data are useless. Our schools are now being evaluated and swamped by a tidal wave of useless data. We need to re-examine our assumptions."

So I say, good for Tennessee for going for accuracy. But at the same time, we should recognize that student growth on tests is only one measure of a school's merit. Others include the students' success in their next schools, express ideas clearly orally and in writing, conduct research, and their ability to express interest in their peers and the world. There are many more. I don't think testing alone will ever take us there, and it certainly won't if we're willing to concede accuracy for expedience.

The Limits of (Quantifiable) Data

2009-03-01T19:03:00.006-05:00

Mike's comment on my last post made me realize that I was being too dismissive of data. I'm trying to set something up here that is dismissive of no one and solutions-oriented, and what I wrote in my last post doesn't get there. Thanks, Mike.

I do think numbers are important. I point to some numbers I think are very useful here and here. I also go into a more detailed critique of a problematic use of data here. As Mike the commentator says, the issue is that data has limits, not that it's all bad. I don't think that conflicts with Mike Rose's point that too often numbers seduce us into thinking we've found an answer.

I'm proposing that qualitative data can be used in conjunction with quantitative measures to most effectively capture what matters. I'll give two examples.

Last weekend, Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, wrote an excellent piece in the NY Times Magazine about the basketball player Shane Battier. Battier's teams clearly perform better when he's on the court, and yet the NBA's sabremetricians can't figure out a way to measure what he does. Here's what I took away from the article:

1) There are a plethora of perverse incentives in basketball (and I'd argue, though Lewis doesn't make this point, in all sports). These statistics incentivize doing something--scoring a point, grabbing a rebound, recording an assist--and can often cause players to act selfishly, not in the best interest of the team.

2) There is some sound data that can be used to make one's team better. That's what Battier does. For example, he studies the numbers that show him what types of shots his opponents hit most and least often, and he uses that to his advantage on defense.

3) No one has figured out how to measure how exactly Battier contributes to his team, and yet Lewis' narrative description effectively shows us what it is that Battier does.

The parallels to teaching are clear. Test scores are a perverse incentive. This doesn't mean that they have no utility, but they certainly lead to an overemphasis on teaching methods that do not serve students' best interests. And yet, there is other data--such as that gleaned from authentic assessments--that can provide a more holistic measure of students' ability to internalize and apply what is taught. Finally, teaching is complex, and we still have not figured out a way to effectively use data to describe what makes an effective teacher. Narrative descriptions are very useful in this regard, as they are in describing student progress.

Ariel Sacks makes this point in her recent post on the difficulty of assigning course grades in middle school. She describes how schools spend PD time looking at the pass rates of various teachers (I've partaken in this routine), but the teachers use vastly different methods to determine who passes. She points out that we need to agree on what it really means to pass a class before we can have a meaningful dialogue about pass rates, yet that conversation rarely takes place. Ultimately, she believes narrative evaluations do a fairer job of capturing a student's progress, at least in middle school.

We talk about measuring teacher effectiveness with test scores, but we separate that conversation from the one about what makes a good teacher. The law mandates that we measure schools' ability to deliver educational services based on a single test, but when we talk about what makes our children's schools effective we look at so much more. We accept the easiest measure, rather than measuring what matters. Qualitative measures are not neat and clean, which is why they are useful when describing complexities that go beyond quantification.

I Like Stats as Much as the Next Guy, but...

2009-02-25T22:01:00.005-05:00

Read this great snippet last weekend. It's Mike Rose on the drive to quantify in the 1970's.

"The drive to quantify became very strong, a reality unto itself, and what you couldn't represent with a ratio or a chart--what was messy and social and complex--was simply harder to talk about and much harder to get acknowledged. Patricia Cline Cohen, the historian of numeracy, notes that in America there is the belief that 'to measure is to initiate a cure.' But a focus on quantification--on errors we can count, on test scores we can rank-order--can divert us from rather than guide us toward solutions. Numbers seduce us into thinking we know more than we do; they give us a false assurance of rigor but reveal little about the complex cognitive and emotional processes behind the tally of errors and wrong answers. What goes on behind the mistakes simply escapes the measurer's rule." (200)

Rose's writing is not yet dated. I'm adding it to my "why high-stakes standardized tests won't fix the education system" file.

Eric Holder, Briefly

2009-02-25T21:04:00.006-05:00

I'm late on this, but I want to say how Holder's comments make me think of my students. In six years of teaching, I taught two white kids. That's half a century after Brown. Folks like Maureen Dowd, who think that electing a black president and him appointing a black attorney general is proof that we're beyond this conversation, and John McWhorter, who's offended because he thinks Holder called him a coward, sound to me like they've never visited an urban public school.

The irony is that many of my students sounded similarly unaware when we spoke about contemporary race relations. Or maybe it's not so ironic, because many of my students in the South Bronx had never visited schools with white students. I'm thinking of how, while studying Jim Crow, my students would talk about segregation exclusively in the past tense. When challenged, many would stick to their belief that race problems were a thing of the past. It threw them for a loop when we'd point out that their schools were just as segregated now as they were at the time of Brown.

The comments of Dowd, McWhorter, and other critics of Holder only demonstrate their provinciality. Housing and transportation policies enacted far before my students were born were responsible for their ignorance. What's the Holder-bashers' excuse?

Desperately Seeking Lucidity

2009-02-22T13:31:00.012-05:00

I want to respond to a few things that Arne Duncan, our new Secretary of Education, said recently.

"The fact is that we are not just in an economic crisis; we are in an educational crisis. We have to educate ourselves to a better economy."

and

"I think we are lying to children and families when we tell children that they are meeting standards and, in fact, they are woefully unprepared to be successful in high school and have almost no chance of going to a good university and being successful."

My first thought was, what is the connection between the type of education that Duncan and the federal government support and a better economy? We know that our economy tanked due to either a lack of regulation or unchecked lending or an illusory economic model or something, but no one says it tanked due to a poorly educated workforce. My thinking on this is further colored by the fact that our economy has a limited number of jobs that require a college education as a prerequisite, and even fewer that actually require college training in order to do the work. In addition, the federal government has mandated the use of standardized tests that measure basic math and literacy, but that has little to do with the type of critical thinking required for the innovation that I think Duncan is referring to. So what does Duncan see as the exact connection between what the Department of Education is doing and the economy?

My second question: what is the purpose of all this talk about college? Duncan implies that we should aim to have our students be prepared to go to a "good university" and succeed there. But that's a recipe for failure, as Debbie Meier points out:

"What, after all, is his definition of a “good college” but one that’s hard to get into—thus consigning most people to failure. Similarly what’s his definition of “success”? Doing “better than average”? Thus consigning most of us to failure."

So Duncan is laying out some unachievable goals for our education system. And I'm beginning to think of that like this: an important part of Duncan's job, especially with all this new money, is to articulate a vision of education on behalf of the federal government. A mission statement. And the mission statement that I am interpreting from Duncan appears to be inherently contradictory.

I googled "mission statements" and read this:

"A mission statement defines in a paragraph or so any entity's reason for existence. It embodies its philosophies, goals, ambitions and mores. Any entity that attempts to operate without a mission statement runs the risk of wandering through the world without having the ability to verify that it is on its intended course."

I think that last sentence is a fair description of many of our public schools. The main focus of these schools is to get their students to pass tests, but there is little sense of why the tests matter in a broader context. The students need the tests to pass to the next grade. The Principal's job hangs on the outcomes. Politicians and political appointees are judged as well. But what is the connection between the outcomes on the test and the students' ability to succeed and contribute in life? We don't really talk about that in schools. There's not time for it, and the pressure is so great that the question feels irrelevant.

After thinking about our mission, or lack thereof, I decided to see if the Department of Education has one on its website. It does:

"ED's mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access."

I suppose that is consistent with what Duncan has been talking about. It's still the focus on the economy ("global competitiveness"), though student achievement is a far more vague term. As measured by tests? By the ability to complete college? What?

So, given my criticisms, what should the mission be? What vision could Duncan articulate that would make sense and empower schools?

This is somewhat like the question, what is the purpose of education in a democracy? But I'm going for something a little more succinct here.

I don't have the answer, of course. One thing that I always think about is wanting students to have options. It's always struck me as emblematic of our societal inequity that some folks, like myself, truly believe that they can do anything, while others see no positive possibilities for themselves by the time they reach high school. Not all students are going to go to college, but if they don't that should not mark them, nor us, as failures. Instead, I'd like them to be prepared enough to make some choices based on their strengths and interests.

I also am not opposed to an answer having something to do with the economy, but then we should be a bit more clear about what a stronger economy would require of our students. The ability to create? Critical thinking skills? A solid foundation in the sciences?

I'll put this out there. If you could revise the one sentence mission statement on the Dept. of Ed. website, what would it be? And if you're not up to rewriting the sentence, what would you like to see included?

Tapping Teacher Wisdom

2009-02-16T19:16:00.003-05:00

Barry Schwartz at TED, paraphrased: Scripted lessons prevent disaster, but what they assure in its place is mediocrity.

More broadly, his point is that we rely on rules and incentives as a means of improvement and reform, but we do so at the expense of wisdom.

My greatest regrets as a teacher came when I followed rules against my better judgement. My greatest successes came when I drew on my experience, resources and instincts to do what I thought was right.

Two examples:

1) Before the beginning of one school year, my colleagues came to the decision that we would strictly enforce the school dress code beginning on the first day of school. Not wanting to renege on the agreement, and wanting to be a team player, I told J on the morning of the first day that her grey skirt was not dress code (even though it had been the previous school year) and that she would have to serve a detention on Friday. The next day she was absent. When I called home, her mother was pissed. As it was, J pretty much hated school, and I had just made it a little worse for her. I took back the detention, but it was too late. The end result: she came back to school in dress code, but I ruined her first day of seventh grade.

2) That same year, a colleague and I planned our school's first eighth grade trip to DC. I immediately began drawing on my own field trip planning experience as well as friends from other schools who had led similar trips as we devised plans. We planned for fund-raisers, a trip to a restaurant, used donorschoose.org to fund an outing to a musical at Ford's Theater, and found a hostel in Maryland to stay at with great facilities. This went well beyond my Principal's initial suggestions, and she later objected to the idea of staying at the hostel because she did not think the bunk beds would be safe. We stuck to our plans, and the trip was a huge success.

There is a tension that I recognize between providing teachers with the freedom to create and the need to prevent disaster. But if we bind teachers, principals and school systems to a strict set of rules and incentives, then say that we are striving for excellence, we are only fooling ourselves.

A Response to Bill Gates

2009-02-13T23:53:00.013-05:00

I just watched Bill Gates' speech at the annual TED conference. No one has invested more in education reform than him. His commitment is genuine, his organization impressive. I'd call myself a fan of his foundation. Still, I'm disappointed in a few of his conclusions and how he reached them. If I had the opportunity to respond to him, I'd make three points:

1) Be aware of falling into the trap of using misleading statistics. Measure what matters, not what is easily observed.

If we want to know how well a high school prepares its students for college, let's look at the success rate of the school's students once they are in college. Not easy to measure, but a useful statistic.

Or let's look at the rate at which a high school graduates the students who entered in the ninth grade within four or five years. Also not easy to measure, as many students leave school due to reasons that have nothing to do with the school itself and may even graduate elsewhere. At the same time, a thorough, independent study could differentiate those who left because their families moved, for example, from those who left because their parents became disenchanted with the school administration or were counseled out.

But there is a statistic that I have frequently seen used by charter schools as a measure of their success yet which tells us very little: the number of graduates who go on to college. In citing the success of KIPP schools, Gates stated that 96% of KIPP high school graduates go on to college. If read quickly, it sounds something like a graduation rate, but it's not. The stat only tells us that the school effectively supports those who are prepared to graduate from high school in applying to college. A graduation rate, coupled with this statistic, would be more revealing.

Another point: Gates says that he is optimistic because "there's a lot more testing going on," and this is giving us a better sense of what's happening. But what more are tests really going to tell us? And at what cost? Ariel says it best, in response to her experience at an education policy conference: "While I agree that good data is an important piece in determining what changes need to be made, as a few participants pointed out, we already have the data we need to know when and why (teachers) leave high need schools. Considering how tight the budget will be in today’s economy, and how many good teachers are leaving the profession each year, immediate action is necessary to begin to fix the situation--not more looking at it from afar under the light of a crystal chandelier."

2) Great teachers teach a range of skills, behaviors and content knowledge that go beyond what is measured by a single test. These are the teachers we hope to have for our own children.

In a high stakes testing environment, a teacher's effectiveness is solely measured by students' test scores. And on high stakes tests, only a finite number of skills are measured. Not surprisingly, a good teacher can, within a few years, gain a firm grasp of the skills to be measured and effectively teach them.

Great teachers do much more than that. I had the privilege to teach alongside one during my student teaching assignment before I began teaching middle school. Stan taught seventh grade Humanities at a private school and his students were not required to take standardized tests, but he thought certain skills were important and taught them accordingly. He taught spelling rules and sentence diagramming, and he tested his students' progress weekly. He also was a fan of E.D. Hirsch and incorporated historical markers that he thought his students needed to know in order to be culturally literate, ranging from Poor Richard's Almanac to key battles of the Civil War. At the end of each unit, Stan gave multiple choice tests in order to keep his students accountable.

At the same time that his students were learning the skills that standardized tests measure, Stan was preparing them for much more. He taught his students to lead weekly current events discussions. He prepared a curriculum on the African Burial Ground in downtown Manhattan (well before it became a popular landmark) that incorporated visual art, poetry, a study of the Harlem Renaissance, historical research, and the essential understanding that black people were critical contributors to the rise of New York City. And he taught his students to look out for each other and their classroom, gradually ceding control so that by the end of the year I was able to take over for three weeks with little difficulty when he went out with a bad back.

I only began to describe the curriculum here. Stan had researched every unit thoroughly and taught them several times over, making adjustments each year. Most impressive to me was that he could ariculate the connection between both the skills and content knowledge of one lesson to the one coming next week, next month, or next semester.

Now, I might have been able to teach the class next door and produce similar results on a standardized test (if we were required to give them) among my students. But even if Stan handed me his curriculum, there is no way that I could teach it with the depth and richness that he could.

During his talk, Gates said that teachers develop very little after their third year. Yet Stan would tell you that he was a very different, far less mature, teacher after his third year, in the mid-1970's, than he is now. A single test score won't show that.

Nor would a single classroom observation indicate the enormous range of student learning that took place in Stan's class. Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote about our ability to identify great teachers by their ability to engage a class. In a similar vein, Gates spoke of observing a teacher who taught as if conducting a pep rally at a KIPP school. As anyone who has ever observed KIPP co-founder Dave Levin with students or in front of a crowd knows, that this is his style. Gates was right to point out that great teachers engage students. (As a side note, after he made this point I found it strange that he later said that we could record great teachers so that anyone with access to a DVD player could have one.) But just as it's easy to identify the teachers who engage students, the ability to do so is one of the first skills that good teachers learn. Within six months of beginning to teach, for example, I learned to monitor my students and speak at the same time. I also learned to spot a student who was off task and use one of a variety of tools at my disposal to reengage him or her. Within a few years, I learned to bring humor and personal anecdotes into my lessons. I was no Dave Levin, but on most days I was actively engaging my students.

I left the classroom after six years, however, still learning to build a curriculum that built on itself, lesson to lesson, unit to unit. I was still learning how to cede control to my students so that they could collaborate and create while staying engaged. I was learning to de-stigmatize making mistakes, as Sir Ken Robinson explains in another TED talk (watch it!). These skills are not as sexy as the teacher who inspires from the front of the room, and for that reason you will never read an anecdote about the lesson where Dave Levin sat back and monitored the class while his students worked on a project. In my mind, the ability to create opportunities for students to lead in their own learning is at least as true a mark of a great teacher as is the ability to engage a class throughout teacher-centered instruction. Let's find ways to describe and teach these behaviors to new teachers.

3) Teachers unions are not the villain, and they will have to be a part of any solution. I have seen ways in which unions slow down the process of change, but I am also thankful to have belonged to two different teachers' unions.

Gates says that teacher contracts limit the number of times that a principal can enter a teacher's classroom, sometimes to only once a year, and that teachers must be provided with advance notice. I've taught in Long Beach, California and New York City, and this is not true in either case. Is it true elsewhere? I can't say for sure. Please let me know if you know. What I do know is that where I have taught principals conduct a finite number of formal observations and that teachers are given advance notice of them. But this is not the only data that can be used in teacher evaulations, and principals can enter teachers' classrooms whenever they want.

When I started teaching in Long Beach, the superintendent, Carl Cohn, proudly told us at our new teacher induction of the strong working relationship between the district and the union. If my memory serves me, in fact, the induction that Dr. Cohn spoke at was funded by the union. A few years later the district won the Broad Prize as the top school district in the country. I don't know much about the how the district and the union worked together, but it seems like it'd be a story worth telling--and emulating.

Just like Gates, only with a few less dollars, I'm looking for solutions. If I could, I'd tell him to keep spending, keep studying, keep searching. I'll be interested to learn what he and his folks find out. Along the way, I hope that he'll keep the above principles in mind.

Rikers Island: Sights, Sound, Feelings

2009-02-11T20:55:00.005-05:00

The bridge from Queens to the Island is long and narrow, two lanes only. There are walking paths on both sides, but you will never see a pedestrian. Pedestrians are assumed to be escapees, and treated as such.

The Island is split up into buildings named for fallen officers, referred to by their acronyms or nicknames only: RMTC, rosie's, the BING, GMTC, Main, Sprungs (round, white, tent-like buildings). Many trailers line the rim of the island. Some 20,000 people are employed on Rikers, and their cars and buses are always coming and going.

I keep my ID, or the temporary ID I exchange mine for, in my left pocket, as I know I have to flash it at checkpoints and doorways throughout my visit. I flashed an ID at least 25 times today.
At EMTC, the automatic metal bars that open and close as you enter move slowly, but with such force that I think they could crush me in half.

Students at Island Academy. 16 to 18 years old, most fully grown but a few clearly with pounds and inches to go. Grey jumpsuits, orange shoes. They file past, and I don't know whether to look at them or away. They are coming from the school, and two are reading books. If I look away, am I sending the message that they do not exist, that I fear them? If I look at them, am I challenging them? If I smile, am I laughing at them? If I greet them...maybe I should greet them. It does not feel natural, but nothing is here.

New York is one of 3 states, I believe, that charges all 16 year-olds arrested in criminal cases as adults. Other states do so on a case-by-case basis, though.

While meeting in the Principal's office, guards run by. An incident, or a false alarm? The sound of metal clanging--cuffs, keys? In come the "turtles," the guards in riot gear. A guard, loud enough so EVERYONE can hear: "If you did not already motherfucking know, you motherfucking know now."

Reflection: My First Night in TFA

2009-02-07T15:05:00.003-05:00

In July 1999, I arrived at Moody Towers on the University of Houston campus fired up to begin my Teach for America experience. The six weeks I would end up spending there were memorable for so many reasons: forming great friendships, experiencing spectacular failures in the classroom and then a few successes, and sharing it all with 800 other folks about to start a great adventure. Amidst all that, my mind keeps returning to a specific moment on my first night in Houston.

That night, Wendy Kopp, the founder and CEO of TFA, gave a speech welcoming us, the 1999 corps. Her speech reached its height as she spoke about the unlimited potential for us to transform our students' education. She then spoke about a group of corps members in North Carolina who had collaborated to raise students' test scores in their school exponentially (above the 90th percentile on average, if I remember correctly).

The next morning, we met in the groups of 16 that would be our support network and team for the next six weeks. As we spoke about the previous evening, I said that I was surprised that Kopp had cited test scores as a measure of success--weren't standardized tests racist? (At the time, that was a fairly standard critique. I wasn't familiar with the tests themselves, but I had certainly heard the argument. The argument seems to have fallen out of favor today, though plenty of other legitimate arguments against standardized testing still hold sway.) Several group members, as well as our advisor (who I would come to admire hugely, and who left the institute later that summer in protest over the expectations and living conditions for corps members and advisors), responded that "the reality" was that test scores are used to measure success in schools. They seemed to suggest that there was no getting around it.

This seemed like an inherent contradiction to me. Weren't we there to transform the current "reality"? Wasn't that what closing the achievement gap and the TFA mission ("One day all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education") stood for? How did testing fit into our vision of an excellent education? Weren't we there to shoot for the moon?

It felt like an artificial boundary had been erected, limiting the breadth with which we could hope and strive for change. It's that boundary that seems to get in the way of some leaders in education as they talk about what is and is not possible.

As long as we are setting our sights on something huge, like closing the achievement gap, let's not limit ourselves. Once we do, we may preclude the possibility of achieving the goal we set out to accomplish in the first place.

The Essential Question

2009-02-05T21:05:00.005-05:00

Every morning, NYC Department of Education employees who sign up for it can receive an email with local and national education news. Usually, the national news is limited to objective-style reporting from major news outlets. For some reason, however, this morning's news clips included an article by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute in the conservative National Review.

Greene argues that the education provisions in the stimulus package amount to more of the same, but that conservatives should be happy because at least the programs in the package don't create any permanent spending commitments--the traditional argument against expanding access to pre-school. There's plenty to quibble with in here, but what really got me this argument:

"As for school-construction funding, it’s unproductive. Stanford’s Eric Hanushek has reviewed 91 analyses of the effect of school facilities on student achievement; 86 percent showed no impact. He reviewed 34 similar analyses of school facilities in developing countries; 65 percent of those studies did show an impact. So, once you get beyond grass huts, spending more on buildings doesn’t help students learn more. Buildings don’t teach kids, people do."

I am reminded of a curriculum writing project I participated in a few years ago while teaching in the South Bronx. The project was organized by New Visions for Public Schools and Channel 13, and we would meet every few weeks in either one of their respective buildings. And at every meeting, I was struck by the contrast between the building I worked in and theirs. Mine had broken water fountains, ugly and layered blue paint on the walls, no air conditioning, occasional leaks. Theirs had sleek conference rooms, big comfy swivel chairs, fresh white walls, bright bathrooms with plenty of hand soap and paper towels, and the temperature was always just right.

Did the buildings help me perform better as a curriculum writer? I'm not sure exactly. I imagine that I would have written a nearly identical curriculum if we had met in a school building. At the same time, the experience would not have been nearly as enjoyable for me in a drab classroom. I also would not have been as interested as I was in participating in the project the following year (though it was cut due to lack of grant money).

What really blew my mind was thinking about what things would have been like had the tables turned. Would the producers at Channel 13 have felt good about reporting to work if their building looked like my school? I imagine they would have looked for another station.

I don't know about the quality of the studies that Hanushek looked at, but if all they measured were student outcomes, they were missing the boat. Outcomes (test scores) are easy to measure. But the impact of a building on school culture and morale is more difficult to ascertain. Even more difficult, perhaps impossible, to quantify, would be the impact of culture and morale over time on students' learning. Researchers like Greene and Hanushek, however, might be out of a job without the ability to draw arbitrarily connect dots based on flawed data. Debbie Meier says it best in her blog today: "We rest our decisions on empty data."

I wish that, instead, we would rest our decisions about education on this question: What would I want for my own child? Greene's argument that buildings don't matter is ridiculous on so many levels, but none more so than this: I am confident that Greene would not send his own child into--let alone perform his own job in--a building that looked like mine.

It appears so easy for some to make simplistic, blanket assertions about other peoples' children based on data. Unfortunately, bad data has been the basis of decisions about education policy in this country ever since the field was created, while we leave out the most honest litmus test: What would I want for my own child?

(Un)Conventional Wisdom

2009-02-01T08:27:00.017-05:00

This week, Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education, said the following in an AP interview:

"If we want to stimulate the economy, we need a better-educated workforce. That's the only way, long-term, we're going to get out of this economic crisis."

It's a popular line, but one that makes me wonder. Why exactly will having a better educated workforce be not just the way, but the only way to get out this crisis? (And on a side note, if we have to wait until then, this will be a long slump.)

I think peoples' thinking on this goes something like this: The jobs of the new economy require more skills and better thinking than the assembly line jobs of the past. We are being beat by other countries educationally and thus, economically. When we raise the bar for American graduates, they'll be able to compete for jobs.

I won't dance around, here's where I see holes in the logic:

1) Most jobs don't require a college education. That's the economy that we have. True, more jobs require a college education, but that increase is negligible when compared with the whole.

According to the most recent (2007) Bureau of Labor Statistics study of Occupational Employment (and I was referred to this type of analysis by Jean Anyon's Radical Possibilities):

"Occupations that usually require only short- or moderate-term on-the-job training, while not growing as quickly as those usually requiring more formal education, will continue to account for about half of all jobs by 2016. These occupations require little, if any, postsecondary training. Among such occupations are retail salespersons, food preparation workers, and personal and home care aides, all of which are expected to add numerous jobs over the coming decade."

So half of all jobs can be done with on-the-job training. And get this: only 21.7% of jobs created by 2016 will require a bachelor's degree or higher. And if we look at acutal jobs, 20.6% in 2006 required a bachelor's or higher, and they project that overall 21.7% of jobs will require the same in 2016.

So how will increasing the education of our workforce pay off?

2) Employers who call for a college education often use it as a proxy for experience. Upgrading the amount of education our service sector employees receive is not really going to improve the economy.

From the report: "Although, presumably, most retail salespersons can learn their job in less than 1 month, 55 percent of retail salespersons had some college or higher in 2006, suggesting that some employers prefer to hire salespersons with more than a high school diploma. Many occupations have multiple paths of entry, with education often being a substitute for experience."

3) I have seen no analyses of our current crisis that suggest that a lack of an educated workforce caused the recession. Those on the left think that a lack of government oversight and regulation caused the system to go haywire. Those on the right say that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did it. Unless you believe that the people in charge needed more education, I'm not seeing the connection.

4) And this requires more writing than I will do here--the education that Duncan is talking about requires basic literacy and math skills, and what's that got to do with it? That's what No Child Left Behind mandates. And that's where the federal government defines educational priorities. I don't see how a mandate to raise the floor--with mountains of unintended consequences--is really going to save our economy.

So, education is not necessarily the cause of all our problems. So why is that thesis widely accepted? I don't know, but I do know that it has been around for awhile. In 1981, social historians David Cohen and Barbara Neufeld wrote (and I found this in Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary):

"The schools are a great theater in which we play out (the) conflicts in culture."

The American cultural conversation constantly returns to the schools.

But if education is neither the culprit nor the solution for our current recession, why does it matter? Now that's a big conversation, one that's been had many times and will continue to be had. I'm not going there today. I certainly believe that it matters, a lot.

Last thing: I found the Bureau of Labor data above to be really helpful. In our current ed environment, the act of looking at data in and of itself gets a lot of lip service. But so much of the data sucks! And that's a future blog post...

Teachers Matter. So What?

2009-01-28T21:52:00.006-05:00

If I had a bad case of tennis elbow, I'd consider surgery. But I'd also take a close, ergonomic look at the position of my work chair, computer, mouse, etc.

If it were my job to protect New Orleans, I'd invest in improvements to the levee system. But I'd also invest in restoring the wetlands that protected New Orleans even before the levees, and I'd insist on new environmental regulations to prevent further erosion.

Don't just treat the symptom, treat the problem, right? And yet, in education, I have come to expect policy folks to repeat the same simplistic, short-term solutions to the most obvious symptoms. This is especially true when I hear them talk about teachers.

Usually, the argument goes like this: Studies show that students who have highly effective teachers over three-five years can close the achievement gap. Therefore, we have to get rid of bad teachers, and hire good ones. It's all about talent (and the same goes for principals).

So when I read this quote from Bill Gates' annual letter to funders in Nicholas Kristof's column this weekend, I thought, here we go again:

“It is amazing how big a difference a great teacher makes versus an ineffective one,” Mr. Gates writes in his letter. “Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.”

I was sure the letter was going to go on about the importance of a talent pipeline, the need to get rid of certification requirements, and maybe even the evil of unions. Lord knows I've heard a lot of that stuff in the past year. And I was planning on writing a post about how Gates was being another policy stooge.

Well, he didn't go that way. Here's what he says in his letter:

Whenever I talk to teachers, it is clear that they want to be great, but they need better tools so they can measure their progress and keep improving. So our new strategy focuses on learning why some teachers are so much more effective than others and how best practices can be spread throughout the education system so that the average quality goes up. We will work with some of the best teachers to put their lectures online as a model for other teachers and as a resource for students.

Not bad. And I think that Gates has some pretty smart people working with him who could add to this discussion. I feel good about the fact that Gates isn't getting on the union-bashing bandwagon, too.

But I have one problem with his logic, and this is what threw me from the start. Gates says, "it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school." Well, there are a lot of great teachers who prefer to teach in great schools. Those are the schools with the most available resources. Even better, for many teachers, is that in those schools teachers can focus on teaching.

I saw as much during my semester as a student teacher at an independent school in New York. I've taught for six years in public schools, but I've never seen a school where teachers were afforded so many opportunities to develop their curriculum. Support staff solved technical issues and guidance staff handled students' high school choices, freeing teachers up to focus on teaching. Humanities teachers taught one class only, freeing them to develop curriculum (or discuss it with student teachers like myself) and respond to student work while their students were in gym, Spanish or French, Math, and Science. And they only had 15-20 students in a class.

Now, there are a lot of teachers, myself included, who prefer teaching in public schools. But it's safe to say that all of us would appreciate better working conditions. And I think it's also safe to say that better working conditions will attract, retain, and lead to the development of far more strong teachers. Better working conditions are not a quick fix, but as one former boss of mine liked to say, often, "There are no low-hanging fruit in education."

So if Gates is looking for a way to raise average quality of teachers, I don't think his research has to take him to far. He can probably see the solution the next time he attends his childrens' back to school night.

Comments...

2009-01-28T21:42:00.004-05:00

are now open. My friend Cedar pointed out that they were not before, but I figured out how to fix that. I hope, if you're reading, that you'll say something!

Cedar also shared a web site worth a look. On the topic of digging into data on poverty, a web forum called Flowing Data had a contest to see who could depict state-by-state poverty data most effectively. Some cool stuff, very creative, and well beyond my skill set.

Poverty

2009-01-25T08:11:00.006-05:00

A few months ago I read Paul Tough's book about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone, Whatever it Takes. Good read, and many people have commented on the lessons to be learned from Canada's attempts to open a charter middle school in the Children's Zone. But my mind keeps coming back to something else.

Every few chapters, Tough brings in a bunch of outside research, and early on he drops a bunch of data on the relationship between race and poverty. He starts with some peoples' observation that there are more poor white Americans than poor black Americans, then turns it on its head. He points out that the official poverty rate among blacks, at more than 24 percent, is three times higher than the poverty rate among whites. But that data is not even really telling until you unpack what type of poverty blacks and whites experience:

--45 percent of black children born into "solidly middle class" families slip into poverty as adults, while only 16 percent of white children follow the same path.

--While black people make up only a quarter of the total population living in poverty, 80 percent of children who grow up in long term poverty (poor for at least nine years of their childhoods) are black.

So: black people are not only more likely to live in poverty than white people, they are far more likely to live in a poverty that they are unlikely to escape.

In my mind, there are only two conclusions to draw from these statistics. Either: a) it's poor black peoples' fault that they're mired in poverty; or b) our society does not afford everyone an equal chance at economic advancement..

If one believes "a," then the only explanation I see for that conclusion would be that blacks (or at least poor blacks) are genetically inferior. But if one believes "b," then the explanation must pertain to the structure of our society.

In other words, either you think, on average, more black people just don't have the right character, drive, ambition, smarts, whatever, or you believe that our society is structurally unequal. And, in my mind, if you believe the former, you're a racist. Is there another way to see this?

The great thing about believing "b" is that this perspective is empowering. Our society is shaped by culture, economics, government. We can change those things. It is within our means to create a just society.

Two other notes:

1) The distinction between kids whose families happen to fall below the poverty line and those who are entrenched in long term poverty is important, and one that I wish would receive more light. There is a cultural schism between the two. I can think of a handful of students who I believe would qualify for the latter group. Those are the students who are so far behind that even a highly successful school year does not begin to get them to where they need to be academically.

2) I'd like to know where other races fit into these measures of entrenched poverty.

Expedience vs. Truth

2008-08-19T15:51:00.006-04:00

“So, now, can I solve all those (social) problems tomorrow afternoon? Can I even get the attention of the people who have control over those things? Right now, in New Orleans, after Katrina, the answer is no, I can’t. But I can’t take the position that I can’t succeed unless I have those things. I have to take the position that we’re going to do it in spite of that. Now, will it be hard? Will I be less successful? Probably yes. But I have to take that approach, because I don’t have really any other cards to play.”
--Paul Pastorek, Louisiana State Superintendent for Education

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine piece on the reorganization of the New Orleans school district, Paul Pastorek explained his decision not to sign the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education and to sign the Education Equality Project's statement instead. Pastorek takes the position that he needs to work on solving the problems his schools face today, and in the meantime he cannot concern himself with factors that are outside his control. It's a popular position right now and one that falls in line with the rhetoric of "No Excuses" so prevalent in leading charter schools such as KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools. It's also deeply flawed.

To say, as the Broader, Bolder Approach does, that policies aimed at alleviating poverty can have a significant impact on students' academic achievement is not to make an excuse. It is the truth.

Furthermore, if state superintendents around the country agreed to say so with a single voice it could have a real impact on policymakers. He does have "a card to play."

Pastorek and the people who take his position often work incredibly hard, seeking every possible opportunity to support students and raise their scores. They have helped to promote a vision of educational equality for all students that hardly existed a short time ago. They are asking that thousands of people increase their efforts and transform their beliefs in order to make this vision a reality. Yet even as they ask us to raise our expectations for all students, they refuse to promote or even admit a simple truth that would bring their vision so much closer to fruition: poverty is getting in the way of students' learning at a high level, and there is something we can do about it.

Pastorek is right about one thing. If we do not address poverty in a more expansive way, he will be less successful than he would like. And we cannot settle for that.

CONTROVERSY

2008-07-24T21:06:00.006-04:00

"I just can't believe all the things people say--controversy
Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?--controversy
Do I believe in god? Do I believe in me?--controversy"
--Prince, "Controversy"

In an ode to Prince, I'm going to begin this blog with a highly controversial statement--blasphemous, maybe, in the current educational milieu:

Poor kids do not learn as much as wealthy and middle class kids.

It is a statement that will disqualify an applicant from a position with New Leaders for New Schools (an alternative route for principal certification). It flies in the face of Wendy Kopp's (founder and CEO of Teach for America) most deeply held convictions. It generally will invite scorn from any of a number of public leaders in the field.

But if I change the wording of the statement above to say, "Children's socio-economic status has a high correlation to their educational outcomes," then we can have a debate. I will leave the statistical components of this argument to those who are far more skilled in the field than I am. Instead, I'll speak from personal experience.

After six years in the classroom, I am more convinced than ever that my students do not receive the same type of education and therefore do not learn as much as middle class and wealthy students.

Is it the teachers? Is it the parents?--controversy
Is it funding? Is it culture?--controversy
What is the answer?--controversy

Far be it from me to propose an answer. But I will say this: poverty matters. It affects students' educational outcomes. Now, more than ever, people of all political persuasions are committed to closing the educational achievement gap. Given that commitment, this blog will make the case that we need to bring ALL of our tools to the education policy work table.

UPDATE: My friend Ariel points out that, in the hopes of being direct, I may have misstated the case. To be clear: poor kids do not learn as much in traditional schools as wealthy and middle class kids. They do, however, learn cultural rules and norms that enable them to survive and even thrive in an environment in which their middle class counterparts would be lost. But they fall behind in the lesssons that would enable them to get ahead in our established economy/society.

UPDATE: Every now and then I go back and re-read this post to make sure it's still an accurate reflection of what I believe. It's March '09 now, and it still reads okay to me. But I worry that people may misinterpret it. What I don't want is for someone to read this and say, "Sam has low expectations for poor kids." Not true.

My point is that, at a systemic level, poor kids do not do as well as wealthy or middle class kids. And for us to ignore that fact in conversations about education reform, well, it's shortsighted.